Month: January 2019

As the Cassini probe plunged into Saturn, it measured the gravitational pull of the rocks making up its iconic rings – and those readings tell us the rings might be a lot younger than we previously thought. In fact, they might have formed around the same time dinosaurs were walking the Earth, with scientists estimating

The risk for severe weather on January 19, 2019.Dennis Mersereau Severe weather in the south during the winter is just about as reliable as snow is up north. The southern half of winter storms blanketing northern communities in snow have a nasty habit of spawning severe thunderstorms, and that’s just what we could see in parts of the

WASHINGTON — Stratolaunch, the company founded by the late billionaire Paul Allen, said Jan. 18 that it is ending work on a launch vehicle that would be flown on the company’s giant aircraft. In a statement to SpaceNews, a company spokesman said that the company was ending work on its own family of launch vehicles

Sometimes we don’t know what’s weirder: nature’s strange creations or the ridiculous names we humans give them. That is certainly the case with the Sarcastic Fringehead (Neoclinus blanchardi). If you happen to spy one skulking away in whatever shell, rocky crevice or piece of rubbish they can find, they’re typically seen as a dull brown

Black holes are great at sucking up matter. So great, in fact, that not even light can escape their grasp (hence the name). But given their talent for consumption, why don’t black holes just keep expanding and expanding and simply swallow the Universe? Now, one of the world’s top physicists has come up with an

Looks like it’s time to change your passwords, again: security experts have flagged up a monster data breach made up of some 773 million email addresses and 21 million passwords. They’re calling it Collection #1, and more collections are reportedly on the way. First made public by security consultant Troy Hunt, the data dump comes

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Look up into the night sky on Sunday and – if it is clear – you may witness the so-called “Super Blood Wolf Moon” total lunar eclipse, which will take a star turn across the continental United States during prime time for viewing. FILE PHOTO: A student looks at a photo

Photo Credit: GettyGetty Royalty Free It’s easy to forget about Antarctica’s problems. After all, most people will never visit there, and the other continents are home to many more problems than can be feasibly lessened or fixed. In this connected world, however, what might seem like a problem that’s restricted to a frozen, isolated part

SAN FRANCISCO – QuadSat, a Danish company focused on testing and calibrating satellite antennas with quadcopters drones, plans to recruit satellite engineers with 700,000 euros ($796,000) raised in a seed investment round announced Jan. 16 led by a Danish investment fund and with support from Seraphim Capital. “We intend to expand our technical expertise,” Joakim

When the dinosaur-killing asteroid struck Earth, most of the impact energy was directed outwards and upwards into space. Only 1% of the force traveled down into the ground, but it was enough to ring the planet like a bell and wipeout species around the globe. Only those creatures able to seek shelter from the intense

New Horizons spots its next flyby target, Administrator Bridenstine visits our west coast facilities, and using data from space to fight a life-threatening disease … a few of the stories to tell you about – This Week at NASA! This video is available for download from NASA’s Image and Video Library: https://images.nasa.gov/details-NHQ_2018_0831_New%20Horizons%20Detects%20Next%20Flyby%20Target%20on%20This%20Week%20@NASA%20%E2%80%93%20August%2031,%202018.html

India will train 45 countries in nano-satellite making through a new capacity building programme, a top space official said on Thursday. The programme named Unispace Nanosatellite Assembly and Training by ISRO (UNNATI) was flagged off in this space hub by state-run Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) chairman K.Sivan and Minister of State in Department of

In recent years, the number of extra-solar planets discovered around nearby M-type (red dwarf stars) has grown considerably. In many cases, these confirmed planets have been “Earth-like“, meaning that they are terrestrial (aka rocky) and comparable in size to Earth. These finds have been especially exciting since red dwarf stars are the most common in

FILE PHOTO: The logo of Russian Federal Space Agency Roscosmos is pictured at the ILA Berlin Air Show in Schoenefeld, south of Berlin, Germany, June 1, 2016. REUTERS/Fabrizio Bensch MOSCOW (Reuters) – Scientists have discovered a defect in the engines of Russia’s new flagship heavy lift space rocket that could destroy it in flight, an

During the total lunar eclipse of July 28, 2018, nearly the entirety of the Americas experienced daytime and couldn’t see any of it at all. Six months later, the January 20/21, 2019 lunar eclipse will be visible everywhere on the North and South American continents.Cameron Spencer/Getty Images On January 20/21, 2019, a very special astronomical

PHOENIX – The U.S. Air Force has obligated about $7 million of its $20 million budget for commercial satellite weather data. “We’ve still got dollars available for this,” said John Dreher, weather systems branch chief at Hanscom Air Force Base in Massachusetts. Congress provided the Air Force with a total of about $20 million in

Unless you live in the tropical rainforests of South or Central America, most of the sloths you’ll encounter will be two-toed sloths (Choloepus sp.). This is because they are able to eat quite a varied diet and are therefore relatively easy to keep in captivity. Their relatives, the three-toed sloths (Bradypus sp.), on the other

In 2009, supermodel Kate Moss caused a stir when she categorically stated that “nothing tastes as good as skinny feels”. As jaw-dropping as the sentiment might have seemed to many, Moss’ pithy comment encapsulates a modern Western zeitgeist. From an evolutionary perspective, however, Moss’ statement is ludicrous, if not preposterous. Such a statement could only

An irresistible story swept the world of science and technology journalism Tuesday when China’s space program said that its Moon lander had sprouted a cotton seedling inside a sealed grow container — the first plant ever grown on another world. “China’s Moon mission sees first seeds sprout,” trumpeted the BBC. “Cotton seed sprouts in China’s

Every year, ocean waves are getting stronger and more destructive – and according to new research, it’s only going to get worse. A new study has found a correlation between warming oceans and wave size and strength, suggesting that the more things heat up, the more destructive our oceans will become. Ocean waves are built by the

Share to facebook Share to twitter Share to linkedin What are the risks of radiotherapy? originally appeared on Quora: the place to gain and share knowledge, empowering people to learn from others and better understand the world. Answer by Gary Larson, Board Certified Radiation Oncologist, on Quora: There are multiple potential risks of Radiation Therapy

The single most significant action in the Missile Defense Review is the endorsement of a program to build a new network of early warning and tracking satellites, which the Pentagon calls a Space Sensor Layer. WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence visited the Pentagon on Thursday to roll out the 2019

When you beam intense pulses of light into a thin circle, strange things will happen, according to new research based on the optical equivalent of a whispering gallery. Inside tiny loops of transparent fibre, waves of light can be forced to break step and change the orientation of their wiggle in odd ways, bending the

It’s amazing what you can find when you do a good clear-out. Just ask chemistry researcher Alan Aitken. The scientist, from Scotland’s University of St Andrews, was rummaging through a storage area under a chemistry lecture room back in 2014 when he stumbled upon a unique relic of scientific history. Stashed amidst chemicals and random

The most distant object humanity has ever visited looks something like a spinning snowman or hourglass that’s lost in space. Researchers who work on NASA’s nuclear-powered New Horizons mission released a movie on Tuesday showing the rotation of the mountain-size rock, which is known formally as (486958) 2014 MU69. (It’s more commonly referred to as “Ultima

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Saturn’s rings are one of our solar system’s magnificent sights, but may be a relatively recent addition, according to data obtained from NASA’s Cassini spacecraft before the robotic explorer’s 2017 death plunge into the giant gas planet. FILE PHOTO: These Hubble Space Telescope images of Saturn, shown in this handout composite photo released

Two weather-related headlines caught my eye this week. One was about the Polar Vortex. The Polar Vortex is often misunderstood and over-hyped, but all signs indicate that it has split and is likely to open the gateway for frigid temperatures in the eastern United States. Speaking of frigid, the other headline was about the potential for

WASHINGTON — Isotropic Systems, a startup developing modular antenna systems for satellite communications, has raised $14 million from a group of investors led by Boeing’s HorizonX venture investment arm. In an interview, Isotropic founder and CEO John Finney said Boeing and Isotropic agreed to several “strategic elements” that go beyond the cash investment. “We are

How can a substance be a solid, liquid, and gas all at the same time? See the process scientists describe as “The Triple Point.” | For more Outrageous Acts of Science, visit http://science.discovery.com/tv-shows/outrageous-acts-of-science/#mkcpgn=ytsci1 Catch Outrageous Acts of Science Saturdays at 9/8c on Science! Subscribe to Science Channel: http://www.youtube.com/subscription_center?add_user=sciencechannel Watch full episodes: http://bit.ly/OutrageousActsFullEpisodes Check out SCI2

By combining the visible and infrared capabilities of the Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes, astronomers and visualization specialists from NASA’s Universe of Learning program have created a spectacular, three-dimensional, fly-through movie of the magnificent Orion nebula, a nearby stellar nursery. Using actual scientific data along with Hollywood techniques, a team at the Space Telescope Science

A cotton seedling that sprouted on the moon has been left to die as China’s historic lunar lander continues a freezing night-time nap that will last as long as two earth weeks, scientists said. The Chinese space agency announced earlier this week that the seed had germinated inside a special canister aboard the Chang’e-4 probe,

Scientists searching for signs of seasonal storms on Titan have finally found the smoking gun. A slick shimmer spotted on the north pole of the Saturnian moon is the first evidence of rainfall in the hemisphere – the start of summer in the north. It’s the evidence astronomers have been waiting years to see, since

AT2018cow erupted in or near a galaxy known as CGCG 137-068, which is located about 200 million light-years away in the constellation Hercules. This zoomed-in image shows the location of the ‘Cow’ in the galaxy. Its nature is still debated.Sloan Digital Sky Survey The Universe is an ever-changing place, particularly if you look at it

PARIS — Amid difficulties for the European launch industry, and with Brexit looming on the horizon, European Space Agency executives face a challenging year ahead. Jan Woerner, ESA’s director general, held his annual press breakfast Jan. 16 in Paris, outlining his vision for 2019, at the end of which, ESA will hold its next ministerial

Are you sick of nature? Always doing beautiful things at inconvenient times? Well, a Japanese satellite may be just the thing for you. Rather than forcing you to wait for one of Earth’s 22 or so natural annual meteor showers, it discharges an artificial one, on command. Well, in theory, anyway. But we’re about to find

The future of coffee production is looking darker than the contents of your morning cup of joe. A deadly combination of climate change, disease and deforestation is gradually pushing a multi-billion-dollar industry right to the edge. Researchers at UK’s Kew Gardens have calculated that out of the 124 coffee species known to science, nearly 60

Pictured here is a man injecting sperm into a capillary tube. (Photo: Getty Images)Getty Here is one way to make your back pain seem less of a problem. Create another medical problem. The Irish Medical Journal included a case report of a 33-year-old male patient who was suffering from continuing severe lower back pain after lifting a

Updated 11:00 p.m. Eastern. WASHINGTON — Less than a week after laying off 10 percent of its employees, SpaceX said Jan. 16 that it plans to shift work on at least prototypes of its next-generation launch system from Los Angeles to Texas. In a statement, SpaceX said it was now planning to build prototypes of

In just a few days, the Moon will turn a shade of rust and loom larger in the sky than usual in a relatively rare astronomical event. For the half of the planet fortunate enough to see it, it’s a chance to see two fascinating spectacles combined in what’s known as a ‘super blood moon’

Share to facebook Share to twitter Share to linkedin A model of a Tyrannosaurus dinosaur, center, and a robotic garbage can stand in the lobby of the Henn na Hotel Maihama Tokyo Bay, operated by H.I.S. Hotel Holdings Co., a unit of H.I.S. Co., during a media preview in Urayasu, Chiba, Japan, on Wednesday, March

WASHINGTON — Aircraft-tracking startup Aireon is borrowing $200 million through a Deutsche Bank-led group of investor funds, the company said Jan. 16. Aireon said it signed the credit facility Dec. 21, and that it used the new funds to pay satellite operator Iridium $35 million before the end of 2018 for hosting its sensor payloads

Hollow wooden surfboards are making a comeback. These artisanal boards are made from carefully chosen, eco-friendly wood cut into many different parts, assembled and finished by hand. Watch full episodes: http://www.hulu.com/how-its-made http://bit.ly/HowItsMadeFullEpisodes Subscribe to Science Channel: http://www.youtube.com/subscription_center?add_user=sciencechannel Check out SCI2 for infinitely awesome science videos. Every day. http://bit.ly/SCI2YT Download the TestTube app: http://testu.be/1ndmmMq

Psyche is both the name of an asteroid orbiting the Sun between Mars and Jupiter — and the name of a NASA space mission to visit that asteroid, led by Arizona State University. Join the Psyche team to explore why this mission was selected for NASA’s Discovery Program, how we’ll get to the asteroid, what

Good news for train passengers: the Indian Railways has linked its locomotives via ISRO satellites, making it easy to track trains and automatically feed the control charts about trains’ arrival and departure, officials said. “A new beginning has been made in the new year: the train movement information is acquired and fed to the control charts

The peculiar movement of gas at the galactic centre could be the smoking gun that finally leads astronomers to the most elusive type of black hole – the middleweight. Black holes are pretty hard to find unless they’re actively feeding (or colliding), since they don’t emit any electromagnetic radiation (except perhaps for Hawking radiation, which,

It’s been compared to crop circles, or the strange handiwork of aliens. Others say it looks like the Moon, if it somehow materialised in the chilly waters of the Presumpscot River. But this massive churning formation in the city of Westbrook, Maine isn’t evidence of something from outer space, but rather a bizarre and brilliant

GENEVA (Reuters) – A proposed 100-km particle accelerator under Geneva has joined an international quest to develop the successor to the Large Hadron Collider to help unlock humankind’s knowledge of matter. FILE PHOTO: A general view of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) experiment during a media visit at the Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) in

A USGS map showing the epicentre of the earthquake, as well as how far out shaking was felt.USGS Good morning, California! If you’re reading this from the West Coast, and you happen to live in Piedmont in said state, then you don’t need me to explain that you just experienced an earthquake. For everyone else: